


A Practical Guide to Do-Overs

by Lionheart1331



Category: A Practical Guide to Evil - erraticerrata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29143257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionheart1331/pseuds/Lionheart1331
Summary: When it becomes clear that the Battle of Hainaut is lost, and the ruin of Procer is soon to follow, Tariq Isibili makes a choice. He decides that Catherine Foundling is Calernia's only hope. Catherine, sadly, is unconscious when he makes this decision and has no idea what is going on or why she's 16 again. Mix in an incredibly pissed off Bard and other time-traveling elements and you get a rather chaotic, villainous, mess.At least the Grey Pilgrim is there to see Good through the trials to come, right?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A meme in the PGTE discord server inspired me in a rather bothersome way. So this exists. It will probably be roughly ten parts but as PGTE fans any reader should understand that the future is constantly in motion and I will be done writing when I feel that the story is over. Cheers.

The Ophanim were silent when Tariq heard that the Black Queen had fallen. An arrow powered by an aspect from the Hawk would’ve killed even most of the Named currently in Hainaut. That the Black Queen remained alive was a testament to just how far removed she was from the average human. Tariq had gone to where she lay, protected by the greatest of the Mighty from her group of drow and Akua Sahelian. The one who had once been the Diabolist, Tariq was insightful enough to realize that she no longer could claim the Name even if she resumed physical form, seemed genuinely distraught at the Black Queen’s plight. Seeing the raw emotion exhibited by the shade who had once been the most ruinous villain to the surface during Tariq’s life shook something inside of him. It was wrong, came a voice in his ear, villains were not supposed to care for each other like this. Evil was supposed to be selfish in all of the worst ways. It was all he had ever known.

Tariq had quelled more disturbing thoughts than this during the years he had known Catherine Foundling and the Woe. The Ophanim had repeatedly reassured him that they were no less evil for their love and care for each other. He had reassured himself that Catherine was all the more dangerous for her belief that she was doing right. A villain who was so prone to self-sacrifice would quickly sacrifice others, she had crossed so many lines in the past that who knew just how far she would be willing to go. Evil was still evil, he knew this, and so even as he remained civil and worked alongside the Black Queen he remained wary. The Ophanim hummed happily in his ear as he remembered this, but they continued to refuse to give any options for reviving the greatest Villain of her generation. 

And so, Tariq went back to the battlefield. Arriving where the fighting was at its worst and stopping the enemy in their tracks. He found himself working alongside the Hierophant to free Sve Noc from the clutches of the Dead King. If he was reticent to help the Black Queen then the only word which could be used to describe how Tariq felt about aiding Sve Noc was loathsome. They were the old Evil which he knew so well manifest. However, they were also on his side in this battle, he worked with the half who remained free despite the warning tones of the Ophanim. After the Youngest Night was freed he turned his attention back to the battlefield at large, asking the Ophanim for the next disaster which could be averted. The mournful response made his blood run cold.

He addressed the Adjutant in front of him, “The Ophanim believe the battle is lost regardless.” 

The orc showed no distress at this statement, “And do they care to share their reasons why?”

“There is a crab. It nears. They can feel it approaching.” The Adjutant’s stoic expression dropped for a moment at this statement before he collected himself. The exchange that followed was on the nature of limiting losses, and even as it was held the Ophanim murmured a different idea in his ears. One that could perhaps avert the destruction that would follow their inevitable defeat, or could be even more ruinous than a loss at Hainaut. Ultimately, they left Tariq with a choice. Could he have faith in the only person who could do what needed to be done, or was it now time to mitigate the disaster that was Hainaut? In another life, Tariq would’ve taken the path of the Grey Pilgrim. He would’ve called down a star in an act of sacrifice and turned a defeat into a pyrrhic victory. Instead, Tariq chose to have faith in a villain. 

“I need to find Catherine Foundling. What we will do will take time.” Adjutant nodded in understanding of the implicit question in that statement and turned to Hierophant. They went to the lines being held by the Army of Callow, and Tariq went to find the Black Queen and her loyal shade. 

The wards around the pleasure house which hid the Black Queen were impressive. They attempted to force him to look away or to focus on other places even as he stared at the front door and felt a surge of doubt, the Ophanim were murmuring questioningly, disliking the path he had chosen to take. The suggested path had been different from the one he had decided on. They trusted only him with the responsibility that he was about to instead give to the Black Queen. For the first time in his life, Tariq questioned the wisdom of his longtime companions. If he were to undertake this journey there were undoubtedly many things he could do to prepare the world for the assault of the Dead King, he did not believe that it would be enough. The most important events that had lead to the current situation were villainous in nature. The role of the Grey Pilgrim did not include meddling in villainous affairs. He would not be able to stop the Tenth Crusade. But maybe the Black Queen could.

He quashed his doubts and, for the first time in his life, ignored the voices of the Ophanim. He entered the building, confident that he was taking the best path available to him. As he approached the room where the Black Queen lay the drow parted before him. When he entered the room where Akua Sahelian held her vigil she dismissed the drow with her. The room was eerily silent compared to the cacophony of violence happening in the city, they held eye contact for a few seconds before the shade broke the quiet. 

“The Ophanim have given you a way to cure Catherine?” The hopeful note in her voice again sounded wrong to Tariq, but the disturbance was quieter than it ever had been. 

“No, but they have illuminated another path to escape this disaster.” He responded. Even as the Ophanim cautioned him he did not hesitate to continue, “What do you know of time magic?” 

The shade’s brow quirked for a moment before she responded, “there have been several recorded instances of heroes and villains having aspects which gave them the ability to slow down or, in the case of the Timekeeper, even stop time. None of the Named in Hainaut have any such abilities.” 

Tariq knew that she was avoiding giving him the answer he actually wanted. The Ophanim, when they had suggested the spell be used on him, had already told him that she knew of the disastrous experiments of previous practitioners. Time travel was only possible in an impossible circumstance, and for that reason, no experiments had resulted in success. Most had seen the overreaching practitioners dead or weakened by their attempts. “No, child, I do not mean anything quite so simple. What do you know of time travel.” 

The shade’s eyes widened momentarily before her smirking mask was restored, “I know that it has never been achieved. And I know that any attempts to do so have had rather disastrous consequences for the Warlocks or Wizards who have meddled in such matters.” 

“The Ophanim have told me the reason for that, and I believe that we will be able to overcome the barrier between failure and success. I hope that you remember the spell of the Warlock Luna Sahelian?” Tariq asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“I remember every spell I’ve learned, even though I am no longer what I once was. That experiment was the last time any of my family meddled with time magic. I would be able to replicate it with some help from the drow for setup.” Akua’s voice seemed hesitant, “Are you sure this will work, Keter’s due, and the magical backlash of such a large failed spell would likely wipe out the city here if we are unsuccessful.” She paused for a moment before continuing, “I assume that you already know the risks, and wouldn’t suggest such an option if you weren’t confident it could be done. What do you suggest we do?”

“We will send Catherine Foundling back in time. And it will be her responsibility to prevent this ruin coming to pass.” 

“And why are you confident this will succeed?”

“Time travel has never succeeded in the past because it meddles in the story of Creation. For a partisan of Above or Below to travel back in time would tip the scales unacceptably in favor of the side of the one who travels. Any spells in the past that would’ve been successful have been prevented because of this. In this case, it will be different.” Understanding dawned on the shade’s face as he continued, “You were once the Diabolist, you have brought ruin and despair in the most well-known traditions of Below. You are owed a boon for your service and you can spend it for their support of this endeavor. I am the Grey Pilgrim, I have earned the trust of the Gods Above repeatedly over years of faithful service. When I ask, they will listen. I will guide the spell you cast with Light. We will make history and, in doing so, immediately break it.” 

No more words were shared after the shade agreed to his plan. Their agreement to work together changed nothing about the animosity they shared. The preparations for the ritual were surprisingly simple. It required a blood sacrifice from both the shade and Tariq as the casters and Catherine as the one being sent. Tariq would’ve balked at the idea of blood sacrifice in the past, but the paths he was willing to walk for the greater good had only grown in scope over the last few years. The drow helped draw the circle, likely not aware of its purpose as the shade declined to tell them. 

After almost an hour the ritual was ready. Tariq shared a final nod with the shade, no final affectation felt at all necessary, and they started to chant in unison. The magic in the air churned and grew and even before they finished the chant Tariq knew they had been successful. He had no time to celebrate the accomplishment, as the spell succeeded the world exploded. Time itself broke and a pathway to the past was made. 

* * *

I woke up with a start and I was immediately on edge. This was not even remotely a new occurrence. Spending most of my adult life on military campaigns had left me ready to fight at a moment’s notice and the years fighting against the Dead King had only sharpened those instincts. My well-honed intuition was telling me that something was wrong, which was a sadly common experience. In the seconds it took me to get my bearings and sit up I could immediately identify several impossibilities about where I had woken up. The first was the tree I was sleeping under, trees didn’t grow this big within the city limits of Hainaut. The next was the temperature, it was much too warm. The third was the lack of the normal ache in my leg, I was so used to the ache that I almost had to reach down and feel my leg to reassure myself it was still there. 

These were all alarming realizations, but none of them matched the next thing I noticed. Hakram was standing next to me, having just shaken me awake. He was entirely too young and had all of his limbs. He also didn’t have the subtle power of the Adjutant that was such a large part of him. As I looked around to take in my surroundings more and saw the standard-issue legion armor next to my bedroll. The forestry and young legionnaires, all of whom I recognized even if I didn’t immediately have names to put the faces, painted a clear picture of where I was. 

Spite Valley, I was in my 16-year-old body and Sergeant Hakram had just awoken me, Lieutenant Callow, to start to plan our next moves following the disaster of the previous night when the Hellhound and First Company had executed a swift night attack and taken most of Rat Company out of the game before it could really begin. The issue with this conclusion, of course, was that all of that was completely fucking impossible. I ran my fingers through my hair to calm any bedhead and nodded at Haram. I vaguely remembered being annoyed that I had not been woken sooner the last time I did this, but I was both too confused and too happy to see Hakram whole to offer even a light reprimand. 

I apparently let some of this happiness show on my face because Hakram commented on it, “I hope that smile means you’ve come up with a plan. The men aren’t feeling good about our chances after last night.” 

My smile turned into a full grin, I may not have any idea what was going on or how I was here, but I did know one thing. There were several things I would do differently if I had a chance to do things again, why should I get caught up in the how when there was work to do here? “Well sergeant, I believe it’s time for us to have a meeting with the other officers. Is Lieutenant Nauk awake yet?” 

We parted ways soon after, Hakram to gather the other officers while I went to get ready. Standard rations were far from the worst I had eaten but it was still lower quality than the fare I had gotten used to as the Queen of Callow. I shook off the feeling, tomorrow Catherine could deal with all of  _ that _ . After about half an hour I found myself struggling through a sensation of deja vu as I sat in a circle with Sergeants Robber, Nilin, and Hakram with Lieutenant Nauk discussing the state of our remaining men and how long it would take for us to be found. 

I decided to stick with the assault on the watchtower and so my men moved out to take the tower and get information out of the Sergeant who was waiting there. The assault went of smoothly just as it had last time, along the way I realized that my Name was much happier to respond to me than it had been when I fought in the war games the first time. I probably could’ve taken the watchtower by myself in truth, which was frightening because I hadn’t possessed that kind of power until the Lone Swordsman’s rebellion last time. My Name was apparently very happy with the change into my more self-assured, and villainous, future self. Having to hold back to not give me away was actually not particularly easy. I was definitely a combat veteran but the stakes had rarely, if ever, been low enough for me to practice restraint with my opponents. I took out two of the ten myself before the fight was over. I managed to simply come across as a particularly gifted fighter, hopefully. 

After the fight, the men who had been fighting as a part of my weakened tenth were staring at me with clear respect so I wasn’t sure if I had been particularly successful, oh well. I ordered a few of the fingers and an ankle from each of the defeated regulars broken before we left this time. If Juniper wanted to reclaim those troops her mages would have to burn through their reserves for it, fingers could be healed easily enough but the simple number of injuries would make it exhausting for the unseasoned practitioners. It would become a matter of weighing benefits for the Hellhound.

Robber, the malevolent piece of shit that he was, found this to be great fun and asked if he could go back and break the toes as well when we reunited. That felt like overkill to me, so I declined the offer and we set back off for camp. 

When we arrived, I found Nauk sleeping. He received the same kick in the ribs and playful exchange as he had last time and I came over to request his presence for the interrogation of the Hellhound’s sergeant. I helped him up, same as last time, and we began to walk. Discussing what information we wanted to get out of the sergeant if possible.

After a few steps, the Lieutenant all but fell on me in a rather poorly faked trip and I caught him easily. He raised an eyebrow at me, “you’re stronger than you look.” He didn’t turn it into a question but it weighted one anyway. 

Well, shit. It appeared that my rather mediocre talent for subtlety was already failing against fucking Nauk of all people. That wasn’t great, “Maybe you’re just lighter than you look.” The smile on my face looked intentionally forced and Nauk was smart enough to change the subject. Luckily, none of the others appeared to have noticed our muttered exchange. We didn’t make any better time than we had on my last go-round as we made our way over to the unconscious sergeant. Hakram and Robber were already there and my sergeant informed me that Nilin was setting up the watch. 

“Names Juwan, she’s from Thalassina, I think.” Robber answered my inquiry about the identity of the sergeant. I nodded in acknowledgment and had Hakram wake her up. 

“Well this is unexpected, I don’t suppose any of you asshats could give me a little water?” Amazingly, the feelings of deja vu had reached such a crescendo when Nauk got kicked that I didn’t even feel it this time. I was already numb to the strangeness of the situation, I made a mental note to pat myself on the back for my adaptability when I had a spare moment. Well, if I had a spare moment. Hakram gave her some water and we began the interrogation. 

“Kind of you to wake up and join us, sergeant. I hope that you’re feeling alright, no lasting injuries from the fight earlier?”

Juwan looked at me, clearly flabbergasted by my caring tone. She was still kind of groggy from waking up but mustered a response, “er, I’m fine. I’m sorry, who the hell are you?” 

Robber looked like he was struggling not to laugh but I easily concealed my grin at how thrown off the politeness had left her, “Lieutenant Callow, newest officer of Rat Company.” I paused and she opened her mouth to make a derisive comment before I continued, “I’m sure you’re laughing to yourself right now about how Rat Company is so desperate that they needed to bring in a greenie for lieutenant and how hapless we are that the greenie is now in charge. Don’t bother I’m not in the mood for disrespect and I don’t think that Sergeant Hakram would appreciate anything you might say that impugns the honor of our noble company.” 

Her jaw audibly clicked shut at this, the sergeant clearly was not expecting the change of tone. Robber lost his fight with the giggles and barked out a rather horrific bark of laughter that clearly jarred the sergeant even further. I sometimes forgot just what growing up in an evil country did to Praesi, she was probably wondering if that meant that Hakram would help himself to a few fingers or an eye if she snarked off. Obviously, I couldn’t actually do that, permanent maiming in war games was only allowed when it was accidental (which was to say, it only happened every few games), and there was no way I could get away with taking off fingers for interrogation. She seemed slow enough on the uptake that if I kept her off balance she wouldn’t put two and two together, probably relatively new to the College, regulations on what Praesi could do to each other tended to be followed even less strictly in the cities. 

“Ah, that sounds like we’ve come to an understanding. I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind?” I plastered a serene smile on my face. She gave me all of the information I wanted. I formulated the same plan as last time and shared a conversation with Hakram before getting some sleep.

The night attack went off effectively the same way as last time. Poor Lieutenant Assaye really didn’t stand a chance, I didn’t bother with the conversation like I had last time and as a result, her fireball wasn’t as impressive, when I had shrugged it off anyway. We collected the hostages and made our way back to camp without incident, I pretended not to hear the rumors Hakram was gleefully spreading about me castrating an ogre and walking through a fireball. My lack of a response was clearly seen through by Robber who happily joined in on the exaggerations of my fight with Lieutenant Assaye. 

The mages we recovered, three of them counting Killian. Got to work on healing injuries, starting with Nauk, when we got back it was past midnight and I declared that we would sleep and evaluate our next moves in the morning. Hakram set up a half-strength watch so the men could be well-rested for what promised to be the hardest parts of the campaign over the next few days. 

The officer’s meeting being moved back to after everyone had a few hours of rest did not prevent Killian from questioning my fitness to lead as the newest officer of the company. Hakram and Robber both looked about to disagree before I cut in, “Right now the mood in the camp is incredibly positive because I’m so new, lieutenant. Since I joined the company I managed to get almost two full lines out of what could’ve been a decisive ambush, I led an assault on a watchtower that got us information on First Company’s movements and I’ve successfully recovered a tenth from captivity to start turning this game around. This was accomplished in a day. Without the strong morale from the victories we’ve already managed to pull off under my command, they’ll start to fall apart a bit because of the exhaustion. We can’t afford to lose that advantage.” 

Nauk agreed, he was never really a fan of being in charge anyway, and Hakram noted that the men were starting to believe I wasn’t actually a greenhorn and had prior training from a professional in legion doctrine. This was, of course, the truth, in fact, I  _ was _ a professional with years of experience. I couldn’t exactly say so, however, so instead, I simply smiled and told Hakram that we still had a few tricks up our sleeves

The preparation for the assault on the fortress went smoothly. The difference was that this time I had a different goal in mind. I hadn’t changed anything and clearly, Juniper was following the same thought process as last time, which meant that she would be waiting would around forty of her troops in fortified positions ready to take us out at our own camp. If I wanted to win I would either have to call on some amount of Name power again, or I would have to change the engagement.

The key to the new plan was thinking about what Juniper wanted. I had become an expert in evaluating opponents over the years and knew the Hellhound’s mind better than most. She was a good commander, but she was also prideful, especially during her War College days when she was known as the undefeated captain of First Company. She’d heard the whispers that she was the successor to Grem One-Eye’s legacy of orc tactical genius. It was a testament to what a strong general she was that she didn’t really let this go to her head. She kept the same methodical approach and made the correct decisions either way. But she did have an exploitable characteristic in this circumstance. She wanted to win. 

This was not Marshall Juniper, the decorated general. This was Juniper of the Red Shields, not yet through her first real battle as a general and eager to prove herself. If I held the fort and kept it, she wouldn’t seriously consider allowing the days to lapse and a draw to be called. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to accept a draw with the company at the bottom of the standings. She would assault the fortress to gain the Rat Company standard and maintain her streak of victories. I had roughly forty-five men, taking and holding the fortress would require some unorthodox thinking, but I could do it. 

If Juniper called my bluff and let the days lapse, I might have to take action, but I doubted it would come to that. She didn’t know I was the Squire. She had no reason to believe that I had anything to lose from a draw. The disparity of information meant that while I could readily predict her, she had no real ability to predict my actions. 

I laid out the plan to my officers and they brought up a few issues, I’d already considered those so I simply gave them the answers I had ready. Nauk and Robber both seemed thrilled at the idea of baiting the Hellhound and it was quickly settled. We set off for the fortress to arrive there a bit before dark.

“There’s not really a Great Goblin Conspiracy, is there?” Hakram asked Robber, in a tone of voice that would’ve made his older self cringe in embarrassment. 

I wasn’t above admitting to myself that I found this hilarious and chimed in, “Oh, there is, it’s a plot to cut off all the orcs and taller humans at the knees so that goblins are less pitifully small by comparison. I’m short enough that I’ve managed to infiltrate a few meetings. It’s incredible just how well-planned it all is.” Robber let out a bark of laughter at this before schooling his face into a rather solemn expression.

“Alas, it seems our lieutenant has already discovered the great plot. Perhaps our next conspiracy will be more successful.” He left with an incredibly, for him, serious salute. Robber’s laughter likely would have given away that this was all a joke, but the seriousness, something Robber generally only possessed when in the midst of a joke, did.

Hakram also chuckled at this and turned to me, “so there isn’t really a Great Goblin Conspiracy?” 

“I haven’t the slightest idea, sergeant.” 

We took the fortress without too much issue, and once we were on the inside we quickly consolidated control and separated the mages from the rest of the First Company’s troops. 

Hakram was directly behind me as I spoke with the five mages, who were led by a sergeant. Between these five and the five who had been under Lieutenant Assaye, I had all of their fingers broken and a minor concussion gave to each to make sure that even after Juniper recovered them they couldn’t operate at full strength, there would only be nice healthy mages left for a siege by the First Company. If she wanted numerical superiority she would need to tire her mages out on the 30 who had already been injured in combat with my men. 

Of course, my three mages would be exhausting themselves healing my own men, and I couldn’t be confident that there wouldn’t be a few forced to sit out the rest of the fight to avoid permanent injury. That was why I was here, it would likely require some threats that 16-year-old me wouldn’t have been comfortable with, but I would get these healers to work with me. 

In the end, I only needed half an hour to get the mages to see things my way. Hakram’s intimidating figure went a long way towards intimidation but I had still needed to scorch the sergeant’s eyebrows with an open flame, it was amazing how many things fell under the branches of, “completely acceptable” under Legions of Terror military doctrine. Perhaps this was rather overaggressive for war games against other students, but I needed to cultivate a different image than I had last time if I wanted my interactions with Praesi nobility to go differently. After the First Company’s mages got to work helping to heal my men back into fighting fit, I finally had a full report. There were around 35 men who would be ready to hold the castle by the time the next bell passed. 

The next part of the plan was the riskiest. I had discussed this game with Juniper a few times after the fact before and I knew that the scarcity of troops available to her, with 70 men already engaged and 40 not recoverable for her stand at our camp, she had decided to only heal a tenth of troops and call back her scouts once we began our assault on the fortress. This had allowed her to mass a force of 40 troops behind fortifications with magical and sapper superiority to go against the line that I had managed to get out of the fortress alongside her standard. This time around she would’ve made the same choices and temporarily lost vision of me, but by now she would be getting suspicious and there would be scouts returning in the next few hours at the longest. This meant I had a narrow window of time to get out of the fortress with Robber, the goblins under him, and both standards before such action would be seen. 

The forces in the fortress would be under the command of Nauk and Killian and their orders were to hold for as long as they could. Killian would appear in command, which would be believable because she was the second most senior lieutenant of Rat Company behind Pickler and known to have more of a taste for command than Nauk. Conventional Legion doctrine would dictate that she took control from me once she was able. The only reason I was going with the standards myself was that I assumed Juniper would be leaving a tenth behind to guard Rat Company’s original camp, and I wanted to make sure that everything went well on that end. Hakram and Nauk both had a good idea of how to defend a fortress even without sappers and mages, so I was confident that they would hold for longer than the intentionally ill-prepared group Juniper had left to bait her trap. 

Robber and his goblins were rather awed by the layers of deception in my plan and happy to tell me such. Boarder, one of the sappers who was clearly new to the academy, told me very sincerely that she thought my, “willingness to sacrifice my allies” was commendable. That was enough to extract a grimace from me, and Robber had already realized that I would not discipline him for banter so he cheerfully gave a very eloquent speech about my capacity for backstabbing and deception. We somehow vanished into the hillsides without any issue, Robber’s speech was given very stealthily.

We didn’t end up sleeping that night, it was too important to avoid being noticed and we had rested for most of the day before anyway so no one was particularly exhausted. We managed to avoid Juniper’s scouts mainly because she was clearly focused on the fortress, she hadn’t realized that there was a potential we had split our troops because it simply didn’t make sense. We were already battered and outnumbered, if we wanted to hold the fort for a draw we couldn’t afford further divisions. 

We waited until an hour past dawn before carefully making our way to the Rat Company camp and we saw what we had expected to see. A tenth left behind to guard the prisoners while the rest of the company went out to bring victory. Boarder brought back news that the two sentries were lightly armored mages and appeared to be exhausted. They were easily ambushed and the game was easily won from there. 

It seemed that Juniper had been confident enough in her play that she had made an error that wouldn’t have mattered against any of the other captains in the War College. She had run her fresh tenth of mages dry to get her numbers up to 50 and then set out with those men, wanting to use numerical superiority to quash any hope of victory from Rat Company. This scheme gave her strong sieging strength and the mages had no real duties beyond guarding the troops. In any circumstance where the siege hadn’t been a bait, it would’ve been the correct plan to move forward with. It was a rather stark reminder of just how gifted a commander Juniper was that even with foreknowledge I got the win only barely. Especially because this was the young and untested student instead of the Marshall she would become. I would have to make sure not to fuck up getting her on my side in the days to come. 

The party that night went much the same. I may have acquired something of a reputation for denying drinks after my first, I wasn’t particularly experienced in holding my liquor and letting slip something that I shouldn’t possibly be able to know at this point. After a few hours of celebration, I found myself walking with Juniper. She, it seemed, felt restless over her defeat and wanted to discuss it with me. 

“What I don’t understand is how you knew that ploy would work, if my scouts had seen you leaving you would have lost.” 

“I think your error was the numbers you bargained away to leave me complacent. With only 100 men under your command in the first place and your mages likely tired out keeping those numbers in fighting fit, you didn’t have the scouts to leave behind if you wanted to guarantee a successful ambush after the losses you’d already taken.” It was a very weird feeling, teaching the Hellhound. 

“But how did you figure out the ambush, even if it was clear we were uncommitted to the fortress you shouldn’t have been able to immediately draw that conclusion.” Juniper wasn’t visibly distressed, but there was a small frown across her features. 

The truthful answer to this was that I had basically cheated and known the plan ahead of time, that was a terrible answer so I went with something else, “When a skilled enemy makes a mistake, it is no such thing.” Recognition for the quote flickered across Juniper’s features before I continued, “I spoke to Sergeant Hakram about your impeccable record. It seemed ridiculous to me that a captain who everyone spoke so highly of would make such a series of errors. First, I took down a tenth isolated in a watchtower with a Sergeant who led me to an even more crucial victory at a prisoner camp and enough men to assault the fortress as long as it was only held by two lines possible. It seemed unlikely to me that you were giving out these free wins without a goal down the line in mind, we were clearly being strung along to lead to a win for you.” Juniper was listening to my logic intently, too professional to be particularly upset by her defeat, “At that point, I had to make my mind up and I decided that either you would be waiting at the fortress with enough forces to hold it definitively, in which case we would have to retreat and would potentially be followed back to our camp. The problem with that plan was that if you failed to follow us or we caught on that we were being followed it could quickly become a game of avoidance where you had no guarantee you would track down the standard before a draw was called. The alternative was that the fortress was being used to bleed us and you would be waiting for us on the way to our original camp, where we would have to go to win. I couldn’t think of any other reasons you would give us those early wins so freely,” 

Juniper nodded, clearly in her element discussing battle plans and revisions. We spoke for nearly an hour about potential adjustments and errors made on both sides. It was a refreshing change from the initial distance between us last time. 

After we finished talking she held out her arm, “Captain Juniper of the Red Shields, First Company. It’s good to finally have a challenge on the field.” At this, her mouth split in a way that denoted friendliness, or arousal. I was always getting those two confused. 

I decided to assume it was friendliness, and clasped her arm with my own, “Lieutenant Callow, Rat Company. But you can call me Catherine.” As the grin slipped from her face I could tell that she had heard of me from my exploits in Summerholm. I just smiled wider. 

* * *

Across the continent, Aoede of Nicae found herself in a Helikean tavern. It seemed that she had a few stops to make before she made her way to Callow. 


	2. A Note

My apologies for the lack of updates on this! When I posted the first chapter I had a good plan set up and was ready to write and then, as is often the case, real-life stuff hit. Between college assignments and family problems, I didn't have as much time and was in much less of a writing mood when I did have time. I feel kind of bad for setting up this story and failing to deliver, but it was only one chapter and I doubt anyone is particularly torn up about me vanishing. 

With the release of book 7 now coming very soon, I do not plan on completing this story. Writing an intermission fic after the intermission seems kind of pointless to me. Perhaps I'll revisit my idea for this story (I actually like it a lot) after book 7. Thanks for the kudos and the encouraging comments on discord.


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